Fighting Smear Campaigns Against Muslims in Europe: The Case of Professor Farid Hafez

In March 2023, The New Yorker published an article, “The Dirty Secrets of a Smear Campaign,” revealing a large-scale systematic smear campaign that disseminated false allegations of purported links of European residents to Islamists with the aim of willfully destroying their reputation. The article discussed the case of US-Italian businessman Hazim Nada of Lord Energy SA. The Swiss private investigative firm Alp Services SA targeted Lord Energy because it was seen as an economic threat by the UAE and its state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.

Alp Services identified Lord Energy as a front company to fund terrorist organizations and hired academics and journalists to write articles falsely accusing Lord Energy of links to the Muslim Brotherhood and funding terrorism.

According to The New Yorker, Alp Services intentionally published rumors, false and misleading information about Muslims in Europe to make millions of dollars from the UAE. Lists of alleged members of the Muslim Brotherhood were compiled and reports written to smear individuals, businesses, and institutions, causing irreparable harm. Documents obtained by Nada after his company’s bankruptcy in 2019 state that Alp Services pitched its services to the UAE in 2017 claiming it would employ “tested advanced confidential techniques in ‘dark PR’” to “discredit and embarrass key targets.”